War Diaries of a Little Englander.
Being the toy soldier, wargaming and kit bashing ramblings of a middle-aged Englishman.

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Greetings!

'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Sunday, 9 February 2014

Sticky...

...tape.

I spent a good part of this morning crawling around with a roll of masking tape, masking off bits of my bathroom so that it could receive a slightly early Spring repaint. Fortunately, like most British people, I live in a very small house, so, unlike Mole in Wind in the Willows, I didn't get browned off with the refresh. Mind you, it is certainly a universal truth that masking tape best likes to stick to itself. I spent part of this evening masking up the Airfix Vampire, and proved the truth of that observation, this time in Braille scale:

Irritatingly, the RAF clearly thought it a good idea to run their training ID bands almost up to, but not quite, the booms - not an easy thing to mask in 1/72 on such a small aircraft. However, I am still enthusiastic about this little project, and yesterday discovered a copy of:

in my local newsagent. For a mere £7.95, I got 130 pages of wonderful period photos (from the doubtless vast 'Aeroplane' archive), and articles on the development of the type (and the Venom and Sea Venom), flying the thing, and plenty of material and photos of foreign users and licensed builders of the Vampire. Cracking stuff. Two things stood out for me. Firstly, for someone used to the small numbers of aircraft in the current RAF (we shall say nothing of the awful fixed winged fiasco that has engulfed the FAA. Good job China is only just out into blue water - I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be if I was an Australian or Kiwi in that particular respect), the numbers of Vampires built seem huge. For example, 349 at Hatfield, 979 at Chester, 242 at Christchurch, 1311 at Preston, and 97 at Ringway, and that's not to mention Indian, Australian, French and Swiss production. I know that, of course, modern aircraft are infinitely more capable than aircraft like the Venom, that the F-35 looks like being an amazing piece of kit, and the future is pilotless/remote, but, still, numbers count to some degree, especially when one thinks of rates of attrition (remember the loss rate of Tornadoes in the First Gulf War?). The second thing that struck me was the losses of aircrew in training. One chapter in the book/magazine is a reminiscence by an former Vampire pilot about his conversion training onto the type. n the comparatively short period of that training, one instructor and two trainees were killed in three separate incidents. On the death of the instructor, the author wrote: 'No one seemed particularly concerned, but flying was cancelled for our course for one afternoon as the instructors all went to his funeral'.

2 comments:

It seems to have been VERY popular as a trainer. I wouldn't be surprised if our Air Corps next door to you is still using them as the primary fixed-wing trainer, even though my dad worked on them in Baldonnel 40 odd years ago.

Quotation of the moment

'In a sense, nothing in life is planned - or everything is - because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.'

Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World (A Dance to the Music of Time), 1955.

Cpt. Front

About Me

New Men-At-Arms

Not out until February 2018, but order your copy early - you know it makes sense!

NOW IN PAPERBACK!!!

The Home Guard - 'This is likely to be the standard reference book on the subject for many years to come'; Bernard Lowry, Fortress Study Group.

A Vanished Ideology Essays on the Jewish Communist Movement in the English-Speaking World

Yiddish-speaking, English-speaking, Jews in the Communist movement. With a chapter on British Jews, ethnicity and class, by Al Front.

When Jews had a place on the Left.

The Labour Party is sunk in a mess of anti-Semitism, but it was not always thus:

Alf R. Ont on the wireless

Click on the image and scroll to 01:05:23 for the dulcet tones of Mr Ont, talking about women in the Home Guard.

Women in the Home Guard

From The Conversation, 5th February, 2016. Active, patriotic British women to the fore...

NEW BIOGRAPHY of 'FLYING' FAY TAYLOUR

277 pages of thrills and spills. 'Fanatical Fay Taylour', the greatest woman motor sports champion yet. A speed fiend on race tracks across the world, and a political activist who was banned from the USA, and interned in the UK. Member of the ultra-right underground in 1940s London and Dublin, later an Irish republican and supporter of Castro. Click image for a FREE ,yes, FREE, Pdf version provided by the University of Warwick.

Evolution and change in politics

A review of a new history of what was once a notable element of political allegiance among the Jewish diaspora. (Clink on the image for free link).

Germany calling...

The woman who recruited 'Lord Haw Haw' to the Berlin wireless. Socialist, Bolshevik, National Socialist, enemy broadcaster. (From The Historian 119; click on image for Pdf)

BBC Radio 4: Red Clydeside, Decoy Defences and Invasion panic

More Radio 4 'Making History' rambling - from 20th November 2012 (click on the image for link)

'The Land of My Dreams'

British Great War literary combatants and their writing about the war and home. A Pdf of an article from Cultural & Social History, vol. 8, no: 2, June 2011. (Click on image for link).

British Jews & the Communist Party of Great Britain

More reading for the VBCW enthusiast, not to mention the discerning reader (click on image for link). From Socialist History, vol.12, no: 41, September 2012

BBC Radio 4: Speed, women, and fascism

Listen to my dulcet tones, talking about 'Flying' Fay Taylour on BBC Radio 4's Making History (click on the image for link)

'Fay Taylour: a dangerous woman in sport and politics'

A must for the VBCW gamer - the most successful woman motor sport ace ever and a fascist. Click on image for journal link, an open access Pdf will eventually be available.

The Armourer magazine, March/April 2012

The true daughters of Britannia who joined the Home Guard

Political internment without trial, 1940 style

Fascists, nazis, and the IRA interned. Click on image for back issue of Britain At War, issue 46, Feb 2011

George Blake, literary Scot in the Great War

The Great War fiction of the veteran, George Blake - from Cencrastus no:67. Out of print, but I can send a photocopy, if you wish.

For the VBCW war gamer

In History Scotland, March/April 2011; click on image for free Pdf.

Fifth Column panic!

Buy a back issue - all that is left

The incomparable generation of 1914

from The Historian no:110, Summer 2011, magazine of The Historical Association; click on image for Pdf.

BBC Radio 4: Stand By the King!

Listen to my words of historical wisdom about the BUF in Norfolk on Radio 4's 'Making History'. Click on image for link.

One I did earlier...

Musso and the RSI

Fascism in Scotland

From the Scottish Historical Review, volume 87 (2) 2008 (click on the image for Pdf link)

Another Home Guard one...

A 50 page booklet, now out of print, but available as a pdf from Warwick University - click on the image for the link.